OAKLAND -- Elected BART board members will keep the perk of free travel for life on the rapid transit system, but now they must serve eight years in office to qualify for it.

A divided BART board decided Thursday night to add the new service requirement after a vigorous debate over the merits of the unusual perk.

BART is the only major Bay Area public transit system that gives elected board members and their spouses and dependents lifetime transit passes good for free travel on the train system.

BART Director Gail Murray, of Walnut Creek, said there is no justification for elected board members getting to keep the passes after they leave office as it is no longer critical for them to know what is happening on the train system.

Public Employee Salary Database

"It's a symbol of all the benefits that BART gives away," Murray said in reference to contentious negotiations over pay and benefits that led to two BART strikes last year.

Murray cautioned that the perk could erode voter support for any future ballot measure on transit funding. "This is the kind of thing that sticks in the craw of the public, and it will come back to haunt us."

Murray was one of three dissenters in a 5-3 vote with one abstention to continue the benefits and add a new requirement that board members must serve eight years in office to qualify for the lifetime pass privileges. The passes are limited to free travel on BART.

Advertisement

Board President Joel Keller, of Brentwood, said he proposed the service requirement change because the public has "a difficult time accepting" that a board member who serves a single day in office is eligible for free lifetime transit passes.

While retired BART employees with five years at the train system also get lifetime travel passes, Keller said, the board has no power to change that without negotiating a change in employment contracts. The board can change its own benefits with a simple majority vote, though, he noted.

One BART rider from Alameda said it irks him that BART employees and board members get the free BART travel passes.

"They apparently think money grows on trees for their customers that are impacted by the continual fare increases and contract squabbling, and those are the people they are supposed to be serving," Frank Alliger wrote in an email.

Keller initially proposed that the service requirement apply to future board members elected in November and subsequent elections -- but not to members currently on the board.

BART Director Zakhary Mallett, another no vote, questioned the sincerity of a reform that exempted the elected officials who put it in place.

"It strikes me as insincere to do that," Mallett said. "If we want to stand behind a change, we should be first in line."

In response to that complaint, the board agreed to subject the current board members to the change. Most directors, including Keller, though, have served several terms and already qualify for the lifetime passes.

Board members expressed no desire Thursday to take away the lifetime pass privileges for spouses of retired BART members.

Director Tom Blalock, of Fremont, joked that the free travel pass enhances his value as a husband to his longtime wife. "I hold that over her head," he said. "As long as she stays married to me, she gets the pass."

Voting against the proposal were Murray, Mallett and John McPartland. McPartland said it's unfair to saddle board members with a longer service requirement than employees to qualify for the lifetime benefit.

James Fang abstained.

Supporting the eight-year service requirement were Keller, Blalock, Rebecca Saltzman, Tom Radulovich, and Robert Raburn, who called the pass a minor expense.